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The demand for books estimated by means of consumer survey data

In
this analysis we present some results for book demand in Norway obtained by
means of a three-goods model (books, other cultural goods and non-cultural
goods) and survey data for more than 18000 households from the period
1986-1999. Various methods of estimation are used and they provide surprisingly
unambiguous results. All our hypotheses about the price- and income sensitivity
of book demand are confirmed. Books turn out to be income elastic, they also
seem to be price elastic and our calculations suggest that books and other
cultural goods are close substitutes. We also obtain some more or less
surprising results for socio-demographic variables. Among the latter the
results show that access to outlets for books, sex and age matter for
book-demand. Among the former is the finding that single persons turn out to be
quite good customers for the booksellers, and in particular that households
with small children, especially those with children less than 7 years, are
frequent book-buyers. Even if the data used are not collected for econometric
purposes, and contain a fair amount of peculiarities, the approach used in this
analysis seems to be quite promising. It could be applied for book demand in
other countries, for other cultural goods, and for “small” non-cultural goods
as well.